We decorated our houseplant this year. We’re planning to go to Umeå for the holidays but I didn’t want to skip over christmas decorations at our apartment all together. Phong and I have a habit of exchanging presents early. We just get so excited when we both have gifts to give the other. This year we made it all the way until December 6th before unwrapping them! We even put on christmas music.

I had absolutely no idea what Phong got me this year even though he told me that he had Nymla make it. We had seen her at a craft market in Umeå in September and loved her things so much! If you have a chance, check her out. She has a shop on Etsy too and, as it turns out, she does commission work!

My super amazing christmas gift from Phong! He had a bookend made with pages from the book I wrote and the wolf! I absolutely love it. It was thoughtful and one of a kind and all mine!

I love the craft markets at Gammlia in Umeå! This one had an emphasis on old fashioned crafts but they also had all of the usual crafters in the area there. I was really happy that this one happened while my mom and aunt were visiting so that they could see it.

Phong and I played count the dogs. There were eighteen! We saw an amazing stand by an artist called Nymla. I was so excited by her work that I didn’t even take any pictures! She makes trolls and horns and leather bound books. She has an Etsy under that name as well as a facebook.

We found a candy stand with rope candies. They’re a long gummy tube filled with sugary flavored paste and they come in a bunch of different flavors. Usually they come in strawberry, watermelon, cola, and raspberry.

This was Phong when I pointed out that they had a coconut one. >

< This was when the lady in front of us bought the very last coconut one.

And this was taken after he found out that the coconut one had a licorice filling and he had just dodged a very unpleasant candy bullet. >

One of the reasons my mom and aunt decided to visit me in September this year was to catch the weaving convention in Umeå.

Luckily for me, this was a crafting convention for a bunch of crafts that I don’t do, so my wallet remained mostly intact though I admit I bought an adorable drop needle for spinning my own yarn. Keep in mind, I don’t use yarn so this was a bit odd but if you’d been there and seen it, you would have bought it too! Who isn’t a little enchanted by spinning needles in all forms? They’re just so fairytale!

Linn got to try out one of the spinning machines (peddle operated) and was making it look pretty fun. Luckily those are a little too pricey to buy on a whim so I made it out of there without one.

The convention offered a lot of stands and shops with finished items for sale as well as supplies. There was a great set up in the center of it all with looms and different patterns started that anyone could sit down and try out.

And throughout the whole convention were different woven pieces on display, classic pieces as well as modern ones done with unconventional materials or patterns. It was really interesting to get to see and I think my mom and aunt had a great time as they actually do some weaving themselves.

I loved doing this project! I drew the music tree on paper first and then used carbon paper to trace it onto the blue pillowcase. I worked on it at crafting fikas since it was something I could take with me easily and it didn’t take long at all.

The quote is from Raising Hope and reads, “If you stop dreaming, you’re just sleeping.” I thought it was a great quote and would work perfectly on a pillow so here it is! I freehanded the quote and was really happy that it turned out straight.

This was a gift to my dear friend Malcolm, the same that I made a music quilt for previously. I suspect he might be getting music themed gifts from me for a while.

I tried to keep both the tree and the words along the sides rather than the center after another friend pointed out to me how embroidery can be unfun to sleep on.

I really loved working on this and I’ll probably do more pillowcases in the future.

So this is a quilt I made for my dear friend Malcolm. I suspect he’ll be quite tall when he’s done growing so I tried to make the quilt large as well.

You’ll notice it has a theme. I bought the music fabrics from a site called spoonflower.com and the notes I sewed on myself, though not as well as I should have. I have since learned better methods of appliqué.

The piano at the bottom I did buy cutting out the white keys and then sewing them together and then appliquéing the black keys on top. As admitted previously, not my best work, but I was really pleased with the idea. I may one day need to redo these… I’m really proud of the quilt though. One of my first and like the others, it was a gift.